Items filtered by date: October 2016

President Obama is the first “social media president”: the first to have @POTUS on Twitter, the first to go live on Facebook from the Oval Office, the first to answer questions from citizens on YouTube, the first to use a filter on Snapchat. Over the past eight years, the President, Vice President, First Lady, and the White House have used social media and technology to engage with people around the country and the world on the most important issues of our time (while having some fun along the way).

In this week's address, Vice President Joe Biden discussed the progress of the White House Cancer Moonshot, an initiative with the goal to make a decade’s worth of advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, in five years. Recently, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force released a report that outlines what we need to do to achieve this goal, including: enhancing prevention efforts, expanding access to care, increasing collaboration and sharing data amongst cancer researchers, and building an international commitment to the fight against cancer.

In September 2009, the President announced that—for the first time in history—White House visitor records would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis. Today, the White House releases visitor records that were generated in July 2016. This release brings the total number of records made public by this White House to more than 5.84 million—all of which can be viewed in our Disclosures section.

The economy grew 2.9 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter of 2016, a noticeably faster pace than in the first half of the year. Exports, which have faced significant headwinds in recent years from slow growth abroad, grew at an annual rate of 10.0 percent in the third quarter, their fastest quarterly pace since 2013.

In 2008, then-Senator Obama spoke about the importance of working with faith and community leaders to tackle our nation’s greatest challenges. He promised that his Administration would establish an Advisory Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a body that would “not just be another name on the White House organization chart” but rather “a critical part of [his] Administration.

Sign up here to join the call on Thursday, October 27th at 4:30 pm ET with President Obama and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell on the Affordable Care Act, or check back here to listen along to the call.

Born and raised in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, I grew up in a community with higher rates of poverty and lower graduation rates than most of the state. For me, having the support of my mom was critical, but the support of mentors like the people I met at the local Boys and Girls Club, or people at my community activity center, or my youth basketball coach also helped ensure that I was able to graduate from high school and pursue my dreams.